35 minutes ago, Hasta said:

The offside one was strange. He looked clearly onside and VAR never showed the lines. Sky said they hadn’t been provided the image at half time.

 

What's confusing me about it is how quickly the review happened. That looks clearly onside, at the very least it's borderline enough to atleast take a few looks at it which didn't seem to happen. They made the decision very very quickly that he was offside and then to not give sky the images with the lines on like they normally do. Makes me think the technology cut out or something which is farcical. 

33 minutes ago, rigger said:

I have not seen the foul. Was it a red according to the rules ? Another good way of officiating comes from the rugby today. Foul play is an immediate yellow which means ten minutes in the sin bin. In that ten minutes the foul is reviewed to see if the yellow should be upgraded to a red.

Like with most fouls it's subjective and yeah you could shoe horn in an argument to justify it but if that's a red the game has gone. 

All round its been with one of the worst refereeing performances I've seen in a long time. 

5 minutes ago, Bethnal said:

Really poor decision, as was Macallister’s earlier in the season. It can get rescinded, they can suspend the officials involved for a week, but the impacts that each has on the games are irreversible.

They might yet win this one, but I’d be asking Howard Webb for the head of the next official to incorrectly award a red card against one of my players, if I were Klopp. I’d probably go direct in the match itself.

EDIT: ref’s got the look of Steve Kean about him, so he’d definitely get a whack from me.

The fact that red cards can get rescinded, like Macallister's did, shows that VAR is not fit for purpose. 

That decision was made on a freeze frame. They froze it at the worst possible moment and showed that to the ref first. Shocking shocking decision and shocking decision making process. 

Liverpool got some good luck with VAR a few seasons ago but they have been royally fucked over this season with red cards. Curtis Jones just got one of the softest red cards I've seen. 

Obviously a very big game but of the big teams we could have got, it's the one where we could most likely cause an upset. 

Just now, Displaced Rover said:

Statutory audit quality in this country is on the whole a total joke. In my eyes it primarily exists to train new chartered accountants.

The standard of audit of unlisted entities is beyond poor. When you couple that with 95% of the general public not understanding what it involves, it becomes an almost pointless exercise.

Not to mention the extent of their fraud testing involves asking the directors to sign a letter promising there has been no fraud in the organisation. 

5 minutes ago, Andy said:

If anything dodgy was genuinely going on, it'd be picked up during annual audits.

And would have been long before now.

Torn on this one. Audit is a sham profession and couldn't find fraud if there was an invoice titled "fraudulent invoice £123,456,789.99" 

8 hours ago, tomphil said:

Has anybody said they are making a profit ?  

What's the point of a tax dodge if its not to make some sort of financial gain? That was the earlier claim that they have to write off £20m no more no less to get a tax benefit. I would love to know why venkys own us but let's cross this theory off the list. 

8 hours ago, tomphil said:

You say you know nothing about it but go to great lengths to try and prove otherwise which is a bit odd.

For context I'm a chartered accountant for a massive company and I'm involved in their corporation tax process albeit not down I'm the weeds of the detail. However I don't lead with this as I hate appeals to authority when debating - so came at it with an open mind willing to be disproved. 

I only mention it now to give context to my "I'm no good at tax" claim (i also find it insanely dull to work in). I know more than Joe bloggs but would happily give way to someone who specialises in tax if there was someone on here (I know there are a few accountants on here) 

45 minutes ago, tomphil said:

Nobody on here or posting at least has any idea how the accounting works at a huge Indian billion dollar corporation thousands of miles away.

My last on the matter. 

Losing £20m in cash for £0 return £0 in asset creation all for a couple of million tax relief is not a wealth creation tool. 

Indian GAAP is not sufficiently diverged from IFRS (of which a few on here will have detailed knowledge) as to reverse basic mathematics. 

I have no idea why venkys own us, but I'm highly certain it's not to make a profit. 

1 hour ago, philipl said:

I have an accounting and finance background and I cannot see any scenario in which the last 13 years make any sense to Venky's from a wealth improvement standpoint, no matter how convoluted the corporate structure (it is very simple compared with many I have seen) or creative the tax accountants

Same - although tax isn't my area of interest or deep knowledge - but good to know I wasn't going crazy! 

9 hours ago, Upside Down said:

What is your logic, if there is any, behind your assumptions

My logic is if you spend 20m to save  4m in tax you've lost 16m which gives you no advantage whatsoever given they don't then have 20m worth of assets as a result of expenditure. 

9 hours ago, Upside Down said:

So a multi million pound business is not an asset then?

It is. But they're not increasing the value of that asset by pumping 20m into it per season. 

9 hours ago, Upside Down said:

They rent business space, lease vehicles, machinery etc, all thing they can afford to buy but choose to lease as it can be classed as an expense

Whether you rent or buy an asset you spread the cost over many years rather than take the hit all in one go. Unless you do cash accounting which the venkys most definitely won't given their size. 

But ignoring that bit. If you buy or lease a machine, at the end of the day you have a machine. The descion to buy or lease will depend on a multitude of factors, one of which will of course be tax efficiency. 

9 hours ago, Upside Down said:

It does make me laugh that people who just think they throw 15million at year away for absolutely no reason are so certain that they are right.

I don't know what the true reasons are, none of us do.

Of course I don't know what their reasoning is for continuing to own is or the thought process behind their strategy (or lack of). What I'm certain is that you're not on the right path. No textbook, no business class, not even a shady get rich quick scheme would say "you know how to make more money? Flush £20m down the toilet each year, don't buy anything" 

9 hours ago, Upside Down said:

I'll just add that when I say tax I'm using that term very loosely.

Clearly 

9 hours ago, Upside Down said:

I would hazard a guess that you don't end up a billionaire in Pune without having to deal with organised crime or the like in some way or another.

No argument there, they're crooks. 

18 minutes ago, Upside Down said:

I'll reiterate the point that only the venkys CFO actually knows how it all goes together.

So essentially you don't know and have assumed the venkys own us for a tax dodge based on very flawed logic.

19 minutes ago, Upside Down said:

You have also not said anything regarding the house purchase

Cos I wasn't disputing that point. But that's an example of an actual tax dodge- buy a 7m asset, claim it as a business expense to save £Xm in tax. End result is you pay less tax and have a £7m asset. 

21 minutes ago, Upside Down said:

Large companies make losses all over the place to write off tax

No they don't they either a) make it look like they're making a loss - massage income into a future period, over state expenditure etc (they've not actually lost money here) b) buy a load of tax deductible stuff to reduce their profits (they've lost money but gained stuff) 

What they don't do is lose actual money and gain no stuff (on purpose)

25 minutes ago, Upside Down said:

When you're turning over massive amounts each year, an asset that regularly loses 10-20million is a great tool for balancing the books.

Sharing group losses is beneficial. Creating losses for no gain is not

26 minutes ago, Upside Down said:

Please try and see the bigger picture here.

Please gain some basic knowledge of tax and accounting. 

39 minutes ago, Upside Down said:

 

So you've not grasped the concept of tax brackets then.

For example 65-40% = 39

55-25% = 41.25

 

Obviously it isn’t as simple as this and none of us know how they are doing it. The only person who could possibly kbow how the finances work across whole venkys business would be the CFO.

One of the only real consistencies overthe last 13 years have been the losses. When they threaten to change in either direction, action is taken. Lose too much it will cost money. Promotion and a sudden injection of 200 million also causes problems as you now can't write off 20 million in losses.

Remember, these people who are supposedly billionaires bought a house for 7 million, crumbs to them according to some, and ran it through the company books as a tax dodge.

Now they are having assets siezed because of this and they have had to reign in the spending on their other financial write off. Supposedly. 

That's not how tax brackets work. Take the UK for example. 

If you earn 12.5k you pay zero income tax 

If you earn 22.5k you pay 20% on the 10k over 12.5k

If you earn 60k you pay 0% on the first 12.5k 20% on 12.5 - 50k and 40% on the final 10k. You don't pay 40% on the full 60k. If you sum it all up the tax you pay on 60k is like 19% in total. 

Your logic would say that if I earn 60k I would be paying 24k in tax taking home 36k and i would be better off losing £10k so I'd only pay £10k in tax and take home £40k.

I have no doubt venkys engage in dodgy dealings in order to avoid paying tax. The annual funding of a football club is not one of them. For starters it doesn't even work mathematically. Even if it did work, there's far easier ways to lose money than to buy a football club and conspire to relegate it and play a game of spin the plates in order to keep them in the second tier. 

"Promotion and a sudden injection of 200 million also causes problems as you now can't write off 20 million in losses."

You absolutely could. If we had £200m in revenue, they could sanction spend of £220m. Just because we have revenue doesn't mean we have to run at a profit. Its not unusual for PL teams to run at a loss it wouldn't arose suspicion. 

28 minutes ago, Andy said:

So throwing £16m in the bin for no reason or benefit?

Sorry, not seeing the logic behind this one.

As far as tax avoidance goes its very aggressive and horrendously inefficient 

41 minutes ago, Upside Down said:

You just spelled it out yourself.

These are the people who bought a house through the company and tried to claim it was a chicken coup to claim it as an expense.

Spending 20million to save paying an extra 4million.

But that means they're £16m down overall. People don't avoid paying tax cos they don't like tax, they do it to get more money / stuff. 

I could avoid paying tax it I went part time and halved my salary but it makes no sense to do that because I'd have less money. I could avoid tax by salary sacrificing into my pension, that makes sense cos I get a stronger pension as a result. 

4 hours ago, Upside Down said:

If the tax bill is bigger than the losses to cover Rovers expenditure then they have made money from that.

A football club is a brilliant way to do this as they continually lose money year on year in a way that nobody would blink an eye. Really shows how mental this game has become. 

Not sure why people find this so hard to comprehend really. Corporations do this sort of thing all the time.

This entire thread is because they have been caught trying to cheat the tax rules when buying a house.

Yes yes I know, conspiracy theories, crazy talk etc etc etc...

I can't get my head round it. 

Imagine £100m profit and 20% tax would leave £80m profit for the venkys. Then chuck in £20m of losses would be £80m of profit at 20% would equal £16m after tax profit. So they've spent £20m to save £4m in tax. 

I know corporations do it all the time but they're usually getting something out of it, so they'd spend the £20m to reduce the tax bill but they'd have £20m worth of stuff. Or they make accounting adjustments to make it look like they're loss making. 

I'm not accusing you of conspiracy theories cos I suck at Tax but you'll definitely need to spell it out for me with some hypothetical numbers cos I just don't get it. 

2 hours ago, Upside Down said:

All this club has ever been to them is an accounting tool to siphon off enough money to avoid paying tax.

This doesn't make sense though. They might pay less tax but they'd have less money overall. 

They flush 20m down the toilet each season, they get nothing from it, it's not like they've bought an asset and found a loophole to make it tax deductible. Its not like they've done an accounting tweak to make it look like they're loss making. They're losing cold hard cash down each year and getting nothing in return. 

25 minutes ago, speeeeeeedie said:

After that the fun starts. What if the 2004 team played today's formation, or vice versa?

Formation is an interesting one as 442 was probably the wrong formation in 2004 - there was always the debate about whether lampard and Gerrard could play together. The answer was yes - if Carrick sat behind them. So arguably they could play better in this team. 

Gareth has a cracking selection of players at his disposal but its debatable whether it's the best England squad. We've had comparable squads if you look player for player in each position. In my life time - 96 and 2002- 2006 we've had talented squads but not gone as far in tournaments. 

Look at Euro 2004 starting 11 - who from the current selection (whether Gareth selects them or not) gets into that starting line up. Kane, Bellingham, Rice would be a shout and possibly one of the right backs. 

Terry, Rio, Cole, lampard, Gerrard, Beckham, 2004 Rooney and a fit Owen would all be disappointed bit to be in the starting 11 if they were playing today

We've got a good squad and promising future but calling it the best squad is maybe looking at it through the lens of 2010-2018 being woeful. 

7 minutes ago, Displaced Rover said:

You think Robson, Venables and Hoddle had comparable squads to Southgate? Laughable.

Capello had a good squad granted, but again, no cohesion as noted in my initial post.

Surely cohesion comes from the manager and the players he picks? 

44 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

When your goalkeeper has way more touches of the ball with his feet than your centre forward I think you’re doing something wrong

Regularly happens at city does it not?

Class from Bellingham.  

20 years old and I wouldn't class him as a youngster in the slightest. Looks at home alongside the more experienced heads in the team. 

1 minute ago, Gav said:

You should use those powers for good Dom, next Rovers home game 👍

Here goes

I have absolutely no problem with my wife's sister keeping her clothes on..... 

Just now, Gav said:

🤣

It's like I made that happen. I literally hit send as he kicked the ball. 

Maguire is a different player for England than he is at United. Until he turns up for England looking off the pace and out of form I have no problem with his continued selection. 

He scored an own goal as I typed that....